The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Few would argue that 2012 changed the SEO industry. In April, we saw the release of Penguin and, for the first time, aggressive penalization of low-quality link building tactics at a huge scale by Google. As an industry, we needed this. We were on borrowed time with these tactics and, let's be honest, they shouldn't have worked in the first place.

I know a lot of SEOs who add huge amounts of value to the businesses they work with through quality, creative online marketing. This is what we should be recognised for rather than using low-quality tactics and tricks that have been labelled by others as a "dark art." Link building certainly fits into this bucket because it is one of the areas where low-quality tactics worked for a long time (some still do) and were far from creative. The 5,000 article syndation links and 10,000 directory submissions you've done was hardly us at our best.

I want to share some thoughts on how we can transition link building from a numbers game into genuine online marketing that adds value to a business, beyond increasing their link counts.

Start with why

Last year, I read a book by Simon Sinek called Start with Why. If you haven't read the book, here is a video of a talk he did at Ted:

The basic message is that successful companies know why they exist, and they use this to guide the decisions they make. They also focus on why they exist when marketing themselves and selling to customers. Rather than getting customers to buy into the what, they get them to buy into the why.

The reason I mention this in the context of link building is because I don't think we ask this question enough. The temptation when a client asks for our help is to dive in and start building links as quickly as we can, but why are we doing it? Are they the right types of links? Are they going to make a difference to the business? Is an infographic really going to help bring more customers?

Instead of this approach, I believe we should be a bit smarter and far more strategic with our recommendations. Yes, links help rankings and infographics (as an example) help get links. But is that the best we can come up with? Can't we build links that not only help with rankings, but also drive real customers to the website?

There is already talk of Google reducing the effectiveness of links built via infographics and guest blogging. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to worry about whatever update Google comes out with next?

Why does this business exist?

Whether a client comes to you for link building or not, I think this should be the starting point for an online marketing campaign. To work with a client long-term, you need to really dive into their business and understand it as much as you can. I'm not saying that you necessarily need to become an expert on their products or their market, but getting a deep understanding of how they work and why they do what they do is important.

If you can do this, it will make your job much easier with the following:

Understanding their industry and what makes this business different

Knowing how to get things done internally by understanding what matters to the company

Defining a strategy that is in line with their business goals

You can talk the same language and they will trust you because of that - once you have trust, it's a lot harder to fire you, too :)

There is another subtle benefit here, too - if you're pitching to win their business, you're far more likely to win if you show a genuine understanding of their business.

Why do they need SEO?

There are a few answers to this question that I would not be happy with, and would push for a further explanation:

More links

More traffic

More content

These are all good things to have, don't get me wrong. But in isolation, they don't mean much. If you hear this as an answer, you need to ask - why?

Why do you need more links?

Why do you need more traffic?

Why do you need more content?

These will get you closer to the answer you want to hear. Or you can rephrase to be something like this:

What matters to your business?

How do you make money?

What drives your profits every year?

The answer you're looking for is the one that makes the business survive, and the answer will be in line with why the company exists. This is the starting point that we need because from here, every decision we make is driven by it. This is why it is important to start with these questions. Once you've got this clear, you're in a much better position to start defining a strategy that will not only deliver links, but links that will help the business hit its goals.

Don't measure success by links built

Some may not agree, but this is what I feel about link building right now:

The deliverable of a project isn't links; the deliverable is a clear improvement in what matters to the client - revenue.

I'm not keen on working on the basis of building x number of links per month, with little or no thought as to why. Why do you need 50 links each and every month? What type of links are they? If you build them every month, will you improve revenue for your client?

Let's look at a quick example. You're hired by the Head of SEO at a mid-level company and you agree a target of 50 links per month to be built and a three month contract. At the end of three months, you've built 150 links, so you go in for another meeting to discuss the project and declare it a success.

At this meeting is the CEO of the company who hears that you've hit your target. They ask how much extra revenue you've generated as a result of these links. The Head of SEO doesn't know, and neither do you. The CEO then asks how your work has helped improve the brand image of their company. You look at the list of 150 guest posts on unrelated blogs and stay quiet.

See the problem?

If we want to be taken more seriously as an industry, we need to be able to confidently deliver results that the CEOs of large companies will relate to and understand.

The CEO doesn't care if Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO shows an improvement in your backlink profile. They care about paying the salaries of their employees on time, paying the office rent, and making a profit. Links alone, with no thought or strategy behind them, will not do this. They used to work when link building was a commodity and less risky, but no longer can we think like this.

We're hired to make more revenue for the company, if we can do this by building 50 links a month and it happens, that's great. But we start with why we're doing what we're doing - not starting with links as the default answer.

It may not always be as straight forward as though and I know that it isn't simple to get to this point. So here are a few ways to take steps towards it.

Focus on the metrics that matter to your client

If your client doesn't make direct revenue from their website, you need to find an alternative. Imagine you're working with a B2B website who doesn't sell online. In this case, your work should be measured on leads/inquiries which lead to revenue.

The bottom line is that your deliverables should make a difference to the business you're working for. Figure out the key metric, then figure out how to improve it.

Real example: I used to work with a SaaS client in the UK who were B2B. A single sale of their service could give them £100k+ revenue a year, but a conversion would take many months to complete. I could track enquiries from organic search, but I wouldn't necessarily know if they converted into a customer, so I made a point of having face-to-face meetings with the Marketing Manager each month to see how good those leads were. She was able to tell me if they were on the way to converting into real customers or not. This communication let me see that we were adding huge amounts of value to their business through search.

Try not to sell short-term projects

To be able to focus on this as a metric that you're measured by, you need to agree on being given enough time to make it happen. Doing a one-off piece of link bait that lasts four weeks is probably not going to help, whereas agreeing a contract for at least six months of activity is much more likely to lead to you having the chance to improve the bottom line.

The only time I think that a short-term project can work is when you're working on a very specific problem, such as lifting a penalty or training an internal team. I don't think it is a good idea to take on very short-term link building projects because it encourages short-term thinking.

Choose a strategy that helps you improve the bottom line

This is where it all comes together. By this point, you may decide that to improve revenue for your client, you need to come up with a good link building strategy. You then choose the tactics that fit into this strategy.

You should see the clear difference between this approach and just saying, "We need links," within a few minutes of talking to your client.

When we pick the link building tactics in this way, we're choosing ones that will help us improve revenue for the client - not ones that will just let us deliver 50 links per month. If we're driven by pure number of links, our standards naturally drop, and we will be happy to get any types of links we can just to hit the target we've been set.

Examples of getting it right

Let me give you a direct example of a smarter approach: Turning Link Building into Audience Profiling by Richard Baxter. This is link building, but it is driven by a smart strategy that means the links built will mean much more to the company they point to. They will hit that sweet spot where the potential customers of a business hangout and absorb content online.

What about guest blogging? There has been lots of talk about this as a tactic, and it can be a great tactic. But it is also easy to scale, which naturally reduces the quality of the output. Instead of scaling guest blogging, what about doing something like this. This was a guest post that drove more sales of a book than TV and newspaper coverage.

Infographics that matter

No, they're not dead, but they will become less effective if they're not good quality and worth sharing. Rather than creating a regular tower graphic and visualizing things that should never be made into an image, why not create something relevant and helpful to your customers? Like this:

What about content marketing for consumers?

The new SEO buzzword that has actually been around for years and years. Instead of producing a piece of content where the goal is just to get links, what about producing a piece of content that is useful to your real customers? I have a great example here from Swissotel, hat tip to the guys at SEOgadget for showing me this one:

What about content marketing in B2B markets?

I have two great examples here, starting with American Express who work with a lot of small businesses. They have the Open Forum that publishes content that small businesses will find useful:

Simply Business have done the same with their guides for small business owners:

Both of these companies are creating content that fits with why they exist - to service small businesses. This is smarter than creating an infographic on a random topic just to get a few links that month.

The CEO test

Next time you build a piece of content, ask yourself, "What would the CEO think of this?"

This can be a good way to sense check what you're doing and to make sure that it is in-line with the business and will help them hit their goals. Will the CEO be proud of seeing the content on their website? Will they be proud to see the external websites where they're mentioned?

Conclusion

Yes, links matter - a lot. This isn't changing anytime soon and our clients need links more than ever. But I'd love to see our industry step up and build links that stand the test of time, and not waste time being worried about Google updates.

This isn't easy to do - I'm not 100% there yet myself. It involves quite a big change in thinking for a lot of people. But I firmly believe that if we can alter our approach so that we become focused on the goals of a business rather than purely looking at links, the following will happen:

You will win more business because the clients will see that you focus on what matters to them

You will be forced to use the tactics that really make a difference to the bottom line

You will be able to demonstrate that you've increased a key metric for a business, not just number of links or rankings which most CEOs don't worry about

Overall, SEOs will start to be taken seriously as we're being measured on the right business metrics - not pure rankings or number of links we manage to build.

On a related note, I've just released an eBook focused 100% on building links. At 65,000 words, it covers the whole link building process (including a fair amount of information on this topic) and discusses kicking projects off on the right foot to establish business goals early.

I hope you enjoyed this post - please leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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Comments
87

Paddy I couldn't agree more. I have tried so many SEO shortcuts, and they never work. That's because hiring some guy on $5 an hour to build links, or write copy for you will never generate the results you are looking for. If someone like that could add the same value that your business adds to your clients, then your business is charging too much! There is only one way to optimise your site. And that's the hard way!

True Heather but as Daniel mentioned its not the hard way most of the time. Content does play a major role especially post Penguin and Panda and thumbs up for Google's initiative to clean up the huge amount of junk on the internet ecosystem. The search engines and their algorithms have become so human that they can separate the wheat from the chaff so easily that even we fail to do it sometimes. High Quality Content written with an intent to help users always survive the test of the time, if the same is marketed well and gets the respect it deserves it will certainly lead to customer acquisition and retention. Great Post Paddy.

Content... Well... For blogs or any informative web sites hell yes! What about retailers? I am running furniture web site with 700 sofas, 1000 bedrooms and so force, what kind of UNIQUE CONTENT we are talking about?

I've always said that link building is not hard, but it is hard to do. Meaning that it often takes time, patience and a lot of determination. This is why the shortcuts are so easy to take and why the scalable techniques were so appealing.

So much good information in this article I don't know where to start. I agree that we need to build links and content that are more client focused than Google focused. The way I like to think of it is this. If you build a link that does not improve your SEO at all but drives traffic to the website that turns into an additional $10,000 in revenue then that link is probaby worth it regardless of googles. I think the ability to focus on "Revenue over Rankings" will be a huge concept going forward.

I do have a slightly different take in terms of focusing on long term projects. I think what is really important is to break larger projects up into smaller phases that can actually be measurable. So for instance a long term project may be to increase revenue from website contact submissions by 400%. While I think a better short term project would be "A/B test contact submission form variations to increase quality of leads generated". Start with small wins and let smaller wins lead to larger wins.

Re the long term projects, I totally agree with you. A long term project broken down into phases makes perfect sense. What I was getting at more was the idea of selling a link building project that only lasts a few weeks in total - nothing else at all.

I agree 100%!!! I've actually recently changed the focus of my business from SEO to Online Marketing. I feel the term SEO is no longer as fitting when competitors "SEO" is the Guest Blogs and Directory Links. I want to be more than that, I want to know what I'm doing is helping my clients business. SEOM - Search Engine Optimized Marketing!

The change from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to SEOM (Search Engine Optimised marketing) as you advocate is all directly related to
the shift in value of links to include social signals, and those who do
not follow or adjust accordingly will be left behind.

I like to use the term FUFISM (Functional User Friendly Social Media) to describe how your link building should be integrated into your total marketing approach and backed up by your social media marketing campaigns. you can read more at www.info4u.co.za/fufism

when FUFISM is applied as a philosophy, all online marketing works collectively to promote your call to action pages where you will get your target audience to view your pages and take your desired action. This promotion will ensure that your pages are at the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the key to this success.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is no longer purely in page coding and HTML tricks, but includes the social signals generated within social media sites to a very large degree, and sites with no social media back-up will soon discover that they are falling out of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and are unable to find their way back....

Standard links still have a great value, but the value of a link within a social media platform carries a lot more weight. this weight will dwindle over time, where as a link from a traditional site will keep its value for considerably longer, so you will need to be on the ball and continuously work at introducing your links via the social media in ways that are subtle and non intrusive to the social conversation.

I always welcome new thoughts and ideas on link building, as I am one who prefers content creation, content marketing, and on-page optimization. Regarding link building, after deliberate efforts initially to establish presence and relevant links, I have always chosen to gain links organically as a reaction to content and blog posts that answer questions of the target audience, provide some usefulness, or act as a resource or reference tool. I have used a commitment to creating content ideas suited to your audience consistently, targeting a selection of keyword topics in various ways, and distributed this content via social, online communities, email, and other focused means. This takes patience and trust, but I think it has worked pretty well.

Excellent points Paddy. We couldn't agree more, that's why our agency name includes ROI. There has to be a reason for a business to invest in SEO/digital marketing and it's more than just links. The nice thing about online is that you can measure and track. This makes some in the industry nervous and leads others to say don't worry, its about brand awareness and anything beyond that is "gravy", but the truth is that CEO's and investors care about how any investment hits the bottom line, either immediately (PPC), or in the case of SEO, in the future.

Couldn't agree more. Ultimately, it comes down to the bottom line and how much you have contributed to it. At the same time, it is sometimes quite hard to show to clients because some SEO tactics will take some time to have a positive enough effect to show ROI. For example, you may produce some great content that gets extra traffic, but it may be a while longer before the links you get also have an effect.

All social media signals are just links of a special nature, so using the social media as a link building tool should be added to your basic link building strategy. How this is done is not as simple as just typing the link into your social media post, but inserting it in a way that causes those in your social circle to share your post with their audience through the tools of the specific social media platform that you are using, then thanking them for the share and building the conversation further.

The social media is a powerful link building tool, but it requires commitment and dedication to specific social goals. Your purpose, aims and objectives need to be clear, and you need to keep these in mind at all stages. Over sell is a big problem which leads to a turn off and leaves a very big negative impact which is hard to overcome and restore.

Once again thanx for a well written article that stimulates your readers to think about why they do what they do.

Very well explained! We recently parted ways with a client who focused on one thing and one thing only - the number of inbound links to his site. Despite multiple conversations & emails where we explained the importance of content vs the sheer number of links, he did not care and simply was not interested in producing, or having us produce any kind of meaningful content. We tried to make him see light of day but it was a lost cause. So we fired ourselves from the relationship as we had to continually defend the number of links we built which were far fewer than his expectations (which we had discussed at the start of the campaign) despite the fact that his site was ranking in the top 10 SERPs relatively quickly.I might just send my ex-client a link to your post so he can educate himself.So, thank you, Paddy, for taking the time to put this material together.

SEO has changed, it is no longer about just rankings (it never really was) it is about conversions & sales.The rankings only matter as they tend to mean more visitors when you rank well, but if you can change the type of visitor to become more of a buyer than a browser then you have a better result.Everyone in a business is a salesman and that includes the SEO who is building links as they need to think about what sort of visitor is going to follow those links.

Very cleverly explained, thanks. I always try to focus on long term projects, try not to listen to people and trends, but the new updates keep on distracting me. The majority of customers are also looking for short term results instead of long term plans, and this is a disadvantage of the industry. Great logical approach, I should use it more myself.

Seems that Simon Sinek really gets around these days. :-) I've been using Start With Why with a number of my clients too. It's a good reminder to go back to core principles and make sure your strategies are in line with your goals and values.

Over the last 12 months I've certainly seen more people talking about his principles and have had the book recommended lots. My only slight criticism of the book is that it does refer to Apple a little too much. But it is still a great book!

I agree with you completely that the goal of a company should be profit not SERPS or number of links. CRO is the difficult missing puzzle piece.I am amused however at your graphic showing the URL with the Domain Authority of 77. Sure, that company doesn't need links as much as it needs CRO, but for those of us little guys with DA in the 30s and 40s.... linkbuilding is probably in our future.

I love that TED talk and I've watched it a few times. You're right, if you start with the why and always focus on the consumer everything else will fall into place. For my blog's content, I focus on the questions my customers ask, and then I answer them, 1 post at a time.

I probably can/should do more link building and my PR is only 1, but I do get a lot of hits on my site and more importantly a lot of leads/appointments and they are high quality. I'm now looking to hire another person since we've gotten so busy (and it's the slow season now).

Thanks for your insights. It's made me realize that I need to focus more on quality than quantity and maybe look for guest posting ideas/links within my industry as that will be more targeted for my customer.

One thing that bothers me: While I completely agree, and support, the shift from basic linkbuilding and mind-numbing techniques to real marketing (valuable content and engagement/communication), ever so often when working for a client (or doing research for a pitch), looking at high/highest ranking competitors backlink profile, it cab be somewhere between black and grey, but far from white.

(and we all know how well submitting this to Google works...)

Real problem is that SEO performance follows search engines, and while bottom line (revenue) would be the aim, Google has to become even more fierce in their penalties and major algorithm updates.

I would never do this with a client (unless it would be their specific request, and they understand the risks that come with it), were I for example set up a niche e-commerce site (let's say Indian Curry Spices, and setting it up as an SEO test as well as a potential business if successful), in addition to of course approaching relevant websites (guestposts, partnerships, recipes) which could provide me business as well as links, and in addition to e.g. making few videos for youtube featuring cooking with the spices etc, I would also buy +100 links per month (and, yes, I mean "that type of links"!) - as these websites in niche markets (10 months after penguin release) still often seem to rank high.

Like I said, would never do this with a client, but for my own business, taking the calculated risks involved, I'd definitely have a go!

But yes, great post, I'm just hoping Google to DO more and TALK less! (I know it's a humongous business and an operation, but SEO and practices, in the end of the day, follow what Google does, not what Google says we should do). Looking forward to reading your linkbuilding book too.

PS. Made me smile (while there's nothing wrong with it but shows intent) Swissotel's URL for the guide:http://www.swissotel.com/promo/etiquette-map/

"The deliverable of a project isn't links; the deliverable is a clear improvement in what matters to the client - revenue." - I couldn't write better myself, but unfortunately most clients still want that first rank for top keyword and do not realize the time and money spent to bring that keyword up, could have been spent in other low trafficked keywords that would bring them more revenue.

"Overall, SEOs will start to be taken seriously as we're being measured
on the right business metrics - not pure rankings or number of links we
manage to build." - Agree but this also depends on how much understanding does the customer have about the SEO process. Understanding that rankings and links are not solely success (aka revenue) metrics will open up their mind and make things easier.

I agree with you Daniel. Business owners usually don't understand that they get revenue from conversions, not from huge traffic. Less popular keywords are also less competitive, so it will also be easier to convert visitor to customer.

I can even tell you more. I have a case where search volume did not increase (I think it even decreased) but conversions increased at a good rate. That was based on a "top converting keywords" priority strategy.

I agree with the conversions factor...but we also see a positive correlation with traffic and sales....more traffic means more revenue for our Company. Our next step is to increase our conversion rate.

Thanks for the comments and I agree. Sometimes, part of our job is to educate clients (or colleagues if you're in-house) on the right metrics and not to focus on the ego rankings.

Having said that, we probably shouldn't ignore those type of rankings 100% because the perceived value to the client can be big, therefore hitting them can make them happy which in turn, makes your life a lot easier in terms of getting stuff done.

Hi Paddy, I am not saying I ignore it, but on the other hand, as SEO you might feel a bit frustrated as you want to see your client getting more money at the end of the day and not a shiny top 1, although I totally agree that for other internal marketing reasons may play a role to be top 1 for a top keyword (helping in closing new b2b deals for example)

If you can, you should focus on both improving rankings and revenue. Goal of every business is to make as much money as possible, but high rankings won't hurt either (it will even help). Also, I agree that high rankings gives you more value in the eyes of your clients. I know many people that think that way. I also know many business owners that use Pagerank as only metric to measure value of website and company, so having high Pagerank can help with getting b2b deals done.

"I'm not keen on working on the basis of building x number of links per month, with little or no thought as to why."

I have the exact same thought. I've had to tell clients before, "well, I could guarantee X links each month but I can't guarantee they will be any good..." I've also had clients tell me they want to set a cap on the link building each month and I think to myself, "so if something does go viral you want me to pull the plug?" Neither makes very much sense to me.

This is good Paddy! I agree with your statements, link building is not just about increasing domain authority but really taking into account the ROI back. I totally love Twitter Followerwonk , we use this quite often as well. Do you use the SEO excel by the way? I never tried this before but found it on one of your out link references.

I thought the theme of your post was to add value to the business that we're providing a service for. The point you make 'If we're driven by pure number of links, our standards naturally drop' is so true if we approach the project with our own goals as opposed to the goals of the business. Understanding the goals of the client's business and their industry will help SEO's formulate an effective strategy as opposed to robotically going off to build links. Great post!

Couldn't agree with you more about choosing a strategy that will help improve the client's bottom line. Because in the end, it's all about making money. Regardless of the kind of performance you give, if you aren't helping in generating $$$ you probably won't last long in their company.

We've always concentrated on giving people the things and information they need, or at least what we believed they wanted and needed. The end result is that although we're a small company based in North East Scotland (in the middle of nowhere) we work with businesses all over the world.

thanks for the article. i wish the seo company that i am engaging to do my website has the same attitude. i think some seo companies are really jus to concerned about delivering the technicial aspects while as a consumer, i am really more concerned about the revenue it brings me.

This is exactly the right method of link building but in other words MARKETING instead of pure link building or SERP. My personal business is a reall life example of why>how>what strategy actually works.I work as a freelance SEO and my project proposal strategy consist of what>how (not only the why factor was missing altogether but the marketing method was outside in, instead of inside our). Then, I used this strategy (a fraction of it) and conversion rate increased to about 300% (not actual figure but it is somewhat). I actually got too many projects that I hired many more people to handle the work.Bottom line: business owner don`t care if you create x # of links from x quality or where is the company in SERP. The goal is to get revenue for the company. Thats it.

I think the article is informative, but I have to disagree that it's the SEO company responsibility to increase revenue for its clients. It's the responsibility of the SEO company to deliver targeted traffic to the website. It is the responsibility of the site owner to CONVERT that traffic into dollars. SEO is to deliver targeted and buying customers (there's no guarantee that these buyers will buy). That's a whole different matter. Why sites don't convert is a whole different topic altogether as well. I think this is a very crucial point that you've missed entirely in this article.

As CEO of a company that relies on about 50% of its income from our websites I thought you might like confirmation ( if needed ) that the Penguin Google update and the damage it did to my own websites meant that now myself and similar individuals in my position are having to rely on learning about SEO and the services connected with it personally. In the past I ( we ) relied on outsourcing our web marketing PPC and SEO. I think this post by Paddy if fantastic as it sets out in an almost entrepreneurial way how SEO could and should work moving forward. I know only a fraction of what the majority of you all know but one key factor when dealing with people like me is the return on investment . In the past SEO was so difficult to understand we paid the monies and pretended to understand the results. Although we understand the results / SEO better we are far more concerned that any new company we employ to do SEO does not repeat any bad practices that will upset Google and destroy our precious listings.

Completely agreed, they were and still are many so called "SEO Company" or "Digital Agency" focusing on the number of links and not them quantity. Indeed, this cases frustration and that's why so many people are disappointed by most of the seo services they received from this so called guy's that they don't really care if they generate any business for them clients or not.

Hi Paddy! I totally agree with you. Successful companies know why they exist, and they use this to guide their decisions. They also focus on why they exist when marketing themselves and selling to their customers.

Many thanks. We see a lot of times that clients and companies don't know why they want to "do SEO". Do you want more exposure? More Leads? More Sales?Many people just do without thinking, which in the end has no results. But thinking a little bit of each thing you are doing leads to great results.

Thanks for the post!!! Link Building has changed a lot in last 1-2 years, and a major change came after Penguin.. I guess its the right time to think beyond DoFollow vs NoFollow, Page Rank, Paid Links and so on..

Truly the essence of a business plan. Every aspect of a marketing strategy must be bound to a calculated profit/loss estimate (in my opinion), as it will make sure that the efforts in marketing are realistic and included in the plan.

Paddy,No doubt your blog is awesome but can we seriously rely on Google if it would not come up with new crap updates that will ruin the SEO efforts again.Although, most of the SEOs always are no doubt in bit hurry to reach in top results for them and their clients by doing unethical things which really shouldn't tolerated but I also believe it doesn't seem a cup of tea for very small budget clients. Because without help of a SEO expert an online small business can't succeed and an SEO expert who is going to apply natural linking would always want more money for his/her great efforts which probably will give clients returns after a long time and in most cases clients wouldn't be able continue so longer.And...yes, what about EMDs which are ranking higher in Google nowadays rather than awesome sites are ranking down and even I saw a few blogs with one or a couple crap posts on it ranking higher than other websites which are good in terms of content, authority and linking. For example search link building on Google, you will see that a website https://www.linkbuildingtoolbar.com is ranking higher while linkbuildingwiki.com and seomoz.org are down in rankings.If this is the Google today, can we seriously rely that it wouldn't happen again.Please share your thoughts...

Finally, some talk about the big picture of link building (SEO as a whole too).I think that Rand sparked a similar conversation some month or two ago, when he talked about building links from a user experience point of view i.e. if a link doesn't enrich the experience of a user it's an indicator that that particular link is not quite "organic" and doesn't deserve it's placing. (I think it was a Whiteboard Friday)But what I like here even more is that you align link building with business goals; as in "will it meet my goal of familiarizing more people with my brand, acquire new leads, make new sales? "Great read

Informative article and some real home truths particularly from an SME perspective about proving measurable financial value from the SEO strategy to the people at the top.

Is anyone else a a little anxious about the next big thing from Google? The myriad changes rung by the proverbial "6 ton elephant" in the room throughout 2012 has got me wondering what their next big play will be.....

I think as SEOs, we're always somewhat anxious about the next big update. However part of my point with this article was to say that if we shift our focus a bit, then the links we build and the techniques we use will not be subject to these big updates. The idea is to build the types of links that Google will not want to devalue.

This is easier said than done, but it is certainly a nice thought not to have to worry about the next big update!

Yes I agree with your points. As I told that there is no SEO
in new SEO. We need to build our relations with bloggers and generate the back
links from good and relevant sites. But it will not work eventually if we will
not find out the real sense for SEO. How can we get benefit apart from it. So SEO
is going to shift with internet marking and SEO is just small part of it.

Well, this all sounds good, given some assumptions, but lets put it into perspective.

"The deliverable of a project isn't links; the deliverable is a clear improvement in what matters to the client - revenue." - from article.

The above is often not true. They demand higher rankings. What does a google search tells you raise rankings? Links. That is what they want. This idea that CEO's of company's are these reasonable people who could even have time to discuss these matter with you just isn't true. I have been told multiple times in my life things like "Appearance of the website over sales"- which means we aren't allowed to have a call to action.

I feel this way about a lot of the article. It assumes you work with a company with clear visions on success. Its hard to get small businesses to give me a mission statement, and often times, the image of the company is based off of the owner's, CEO's, or managers mood at that moment.

I think one of the subtexts to Paddy's post is "If your client/CMO doesn't think this way, then you need to convince them otherwise". This doesn't mean doggedly enforcing your agenda, but it does mean treating changing the perspective of your client as part of your job. If you're stuck with this dreadful clients who demand the wrong things, won't take your advice (despite paying for it) and are otherwise concentrating on metrics that ultimately won't help their business - then there is no way that relationship is going to end well. It's a horrible position to be in and I agree it's not always easy/possible to change some CEO's/CMO's, but unfortunately that doesn't make the facts any less true. Conversely, if you can prove that what you've done has increased revenue, then I think the awkward guys can be more amenable to hearing a different perspective about KPI's and deliverables.

Does that mean that you can go and build a bunch of directory links and they'd be happy? I'm guessing not. I know this is an extreme example but it demonstrates my point.

I totally agree that more links is probably going to make the impact you need. The point of the article isn't to debate that links are needed, the point is to try to shift our thinking away from "just build links" with no consideration of business goals and what those links can mean above and beyond a raw count.

"Its hard to get small businesses to give me a mission statement, and often times, the image of the company is based off of the owner's, CEO's, or managers mood at that moment."

Again, I totally understand this and have experienced this. However, no matter what their mood, they want to make money don't they? Blindly building links with no consideration to the long-term success of the website is not going to keep making them money. So when they just want links, it is our job to push back and give them the best advice we can - which is that more thought needs to be given to the request and the subsequent strategy and tactics you use.

Thanks again for the comment and for letting me elaborate a bit more on this. I think it was needed to provide more context than I gave in the original article.

Unfortunately, you can run into the opposite problem -- CEOs who are focused on SEO metrics instead of revenue. So when you suggest other revenue-increasing tactics like CRO, you get blank stares. The answer is always more ranking keywords and more traffic, right?

Yes, unfortunately that is the problem sometimes. Part of our job can be to educate clients on what they should be measuring from online. Not to say they are not smart and we are! But it can be easy to focus on "we want to be number 1 for this and that" because that is nice for the CEO of a company to see. Ultimately, unless that number 1 ranking drives traffic that can convert, it is just an ego ranking unfortunately.

Exactly Paddy, well said that link matters but that should come to you naturally and you should not try to fetch them forcefully. Generating content for users can give you high quality shares and links which is not possible by content generated for only getting links.

Be focused towards your business goals and what your customer needs are, rather throwing yourself in link building battle.

Paddy,Following the same practice and pattern of collecting back links works for a shorter time. SEOs started collecting back links through irrelevant guest blogs. Now search engines are discouraging such links. They simply follow the one pattern, one platform and ignored the other ones. Forums, Directories, Content Sharing Blogs/Websites still work. You feed the unique and quality content to the BOT and get results. Thanks for a wonderful post. Good luck for 2013

I think that this post of yours is what really was missing in the panorama of link building posts of this late period.In fact, there were posts maybe overly taking on the Content side of Marketing and others, instead, over the strict "old classic" value of Link Building.

Both legit and valid, but the first has the risk of making us forgetting how links still have an huge impact in the performance of a site in the SERPs, while the second has the risk of being misunderstood, hence leading to bad and dangerous practice (i.e.: all the post about guest posting as a way of gaining links).

Personally I think that link building - and in this precise topic sometimes I have the same doubts people like Ross Hudgen have - should be thought as an ensable of tactics, whose direct SEO effect are links, but whose real long lasting effect are brand recognition, visibility and referral traffic.

With that I agree with you: link building, as an art of prospecting, outreach and deliver the best content (of any kind) is not dead at all, but even more important than ever right now. No Content Marketing action can be really successful without an equally great link building strategy supporting it.

Maybe the problem is that us SEOs should stop thinking on doing what is the best right now, because that usually means falling in love with Social because social is the new trend, or becoming all of a sudden content marketer because - hey! - content is king and so on.

No! Us SEOs should learn once for all that is the synergy of every Internet Marketing discipline and tactic what makes a site a success or not. And link building is, maybe, the most undervalued tactics of all right know due to the über bad "use" given to it.

"Personally I think that link building - and in this precise topic sometimes I have the same doubts people like Ross Hudgen have - should be thought as an ensable of tactics, whose direct SEO effect are links, but whose real long lasting effect are brand recognition, visibility and referral traffic."

Yes I agree. I'm not doubting that links are powerful and have a big effect on rankings. But our thinking needs to shift from one of wanting to hit links counts and more towards long-term goals.

This post is great and is in reference to a lunch that many of us have had recently with a client. He wanted to rank number one, however a lot of his other KPI's were terrible(bounce rate, page views, etc.) and we told him that our goal was not to rank him number one, but to make his website better and increase all aspects of his business...which is what great marketing can do.

Good article Paddy, always on target. I still do things like blogger outreach, broken linkbuilding, and other various linkbuilding techniques, but I've started to shift my focus towards creating online assets for companies. Blog posts, tools, data analysis, etc. Whether it's on your site or someone else's my results have always been positive when it comes to these kinds of promotions.However, I do think you can use numbers to help give a concrete sense to your work. So instead of saying "I built X links this month", I can say "I reached out to X number of influential bloggers about our newest contest". What are your thoughts on those kind of numbers? Do you set goals for outreach?

Great post Paddy. I'm a big fan. Well, actually, I'm a medium-sized lady...but seriously, I always enjoy your matter-of-fact way of putting things. Maybe it's because I am an in-house SEO that a lot of what you say has been common sense for me for quite a long time. Since I've been here (about 18 months) the company hasn't engaged in any shady link-building. A lot of the links I seek out are places where our competitors might appear, say in a college syllabus as a recommended resource for example. I find them and drop the professor a note and say "Hey you've got a great list of resources for your students and we'd love to be listed there too...and by the way, we'll give you students a discount." :-) They say yes pretty often.

One thing I have had to work to overcome is that fixation on "traffic." I know perfectly well that I can't waltz into the CEOs office and pat myself on the back for increasing organic traffic by 50% if there's no increase in revenue to go along with it.

For those of us in e-Commerce: "It's the Revenue, stupid." :-) Without that, my job disappears.

There is a real chicken and egg situation with a lot of clients, they 'think' they want links, but often, they don't have anything worth linking to. As a small consultancy business, we try, try, try to educate clients but it can often be an uphill struggle and I often here 'if we can just build some links and get to position X' then we can invest in some content.

Tough gig at times but we have to re educate clients with regards to their goals and how to achieve them and the 'why' approach is a good way to do that (book ordered). They believe they want more links as that will bring them the success they crave when the reality may be that adding more blog content or some other form of resources may be a far better approach at reaching the actual business (rather than SEO) goals.

If we can all get better at educating clients with regards to the best way to identify and reach their business goals through search then we can do better work for our clients and likely have a far better time doing it.

Good Post Paddy! Well, It's not actually all about building a lot of links, it is more on on-page optimization. If you just have a search engine friendly website you have no problem anymore on building a lot of links since, Google wants authority website that is informative that satisfies the needs of your users or visitors. If yo have build a site that is not against with the Google Webmaster Guidelines, it's easy for you to get on top of Google and not worry about building a lot of links just to generate leads.

Great article Paddy - we've definitely shifted our focus from link building to content marketing in the past few months. Not only does this achieve links from other sites wishing to share our content - but it adds useful information to the site and achieves much higher conversion rates + repeat customers. A win win if you ask me!

I have watched this Ted Talk before, but your article made me see the video in a new light. This was a great post. Much of my business is based on SEO and link building. At times, it can be difficult for me drive traffic to my site. I have to constantly reevaluate whether I am appealing to my customers.

Great Article and examples mate - I believe SEO should be considered as a traditional marketing its no different than traditional way (IN APPROACH) .. Building links to build brand or sell more should/is always the core of SEO and it never changed.

SEO is that kind of activity which can give you new heights if you will do all things in right ways but if you want to promote your site/blog more quickly by some blackhat techniques then it could be costly for you.

In my recent experiments in blog post, using questions with "Why" leads to good interactive comments. When I responded to few of comments there are lot of comments coming. And those post achieved Google page rank in during yesterday's Google page rank updation. The post leading to interactive comments and answers really work well than getting more back links.

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The why of the book of Paddy is quite evident since its foreword: to be the one single resource that all SEOs will need to learn about link building.

That's the why and strategic objective of the Paddy's book.

From that point of view, that eBook (which is the "How" that strategy is put into action) is perfectly consistent with what Paddy wrote in this post: Content, which has an objective value for its target (SEOs and Link Builders), and link building (but also social) are the tactics needed to obtain the objective of that strategy.

Just to add to what Gianluca and Daniel said, that isn't what I'm saying at all.

You will have seen this part of the article:

"We're hired to make more revenue for the company, if we can do this by building 50 links a month and it happens, that's great."

This shows I'm not saying you don't need to focus on links. What I am saying is that our link building needs to be a bit smarter than it has been in the past because of the way Google is moving and will continue to move. Our focus should be on building links - the types of links that go way beyond just a raw count. The links we build need to be the type that Google do not want to devalue and will add long-term value to the websites we work with.

Hey Matthew,I do see what you mean, but I still feel like my message isn't to not build links, hence linking to my ebook about link building doesn't feel like I'm distorting anything. If I'd blatantly said "link building is dead" or "you shouldn't be building links anymore" then you'd be totally right and linking to a link building book would be inappropriate.However I'm saying we should build links, but in a different way to how we've done it in the past.Cheers.Paddy

You have to entwine seo with web design for a better change. Read : What's really included in a Seo's Job by RandMaintaining the design flow is very important for conversion aspect. Flow includes all design elements that a visitor go through to reach a destination page (product page).